Button Presser

My mother has cancer and I have a habit of pressing buttons that keep pushing back my retirement age. If I play at least five lines I have a chance of winning the grand jackpot of $67,956.65. I don't think that's a lot of money. I used to have more, before. Before my mother’s diagnosis, before the mass layoffs, before I had to accept some mid level management position at an insurance company I didn't know existed. I suppose I'm lucky that way, that I'm not in the red. That I've lost so much and yet still have more to go. Maybe I'd stop if I couldn't bet anymore. Maybe I'm not lucky at all.

I only go to one casino, at least. I only play slots, I only deal with machines. I can't look across a table and see the dealer's face illuminated by the neon lights of the casino when I lose. I tried to, in the beginning. The table chairs are more comfortable and drink service is faster. But, anyone can sit down next to me and strike a conversation, and about fifty percent of the time it's an iteration of the same damn line. What's a woman like you doing here alone? Well I think it makes perfect sense that I'm here alone, I wouldn't put this much money down in front of anyone but strangers and God.

I know the casino's tricks. No windows and open 24 hours a day so you can't tell how much time has passed. Complementary premium drinks and other perks once you've spent a certain amount, so you feel special, part of an in-crowd. The fact that every sound, light, and scene here is designed to positively reinforce spending more money. Well, it works. They have mine.

Some of the cocktail servers here know me by name. I'm sure they're trained for it, trained to try to build relationships with the people who come in here. A touch of the shoulder here and there and a warm smile. I can hardly blame them for their attempts, some come across as fake, most are alright, but Dinah is my favorite. She's been here for 15 years and never talks about winning, losing, or anything casino related with me. She's the kind of person to just offer up her history without checking in to see if you're following along, but I do. I know Dinah has two kids, lives down the street, and is set to get married in a couple months. I'm even invited. She says I'm her favorite casino guest and I'll have to take her word for it, I already bought something off her wedding registry.

I see everything around me and that's how I know I could stop at any time, I just choose not to. One day I will choose differently and not come back. Outside the casino doors, past the parking lot, past the big signs, I'm the only one out of four siblings with no marriage, no kids, and an extra room in my home. We all thought it would be best for her to move in with one of us and the lucky one was me. Everything outside the casino doors requires the most logical version of me. There's always a routine to follow for work, for home, for my mom, for her treatment, I just want to be silly a couple times a week. That's all this has been.

Dinah brings me a virgin tequila sunrise after losing 1000 dollars to a machine with an animated buffalo on it and it's silly. I sit down on the toilet and overhear someone else crying as she tells someone on the phone that she'll stop for real this time and please don't take the kids and it's silly. I get a text from my sister asking when I'll be picking mom up from her house because it's getting late and mom has chemo in the morning and it’s just all so silly I actually leave on time for once.

My mom suspects something, or maybe I'm just paranoid when it comes to her. I overheard some of the interns talking about psychic connections that could form between mothers and daughters in the womb and I'd hate for that to be true.

In the real world, I'm about one minute late pulling up to my sister's home and I can see the curtains shifting as I turn off my headlights. Before I can even knock on the door my sister is already outside, asking me where I've been, and telling me that it's irresponsible to commit to a work party the night before mom's last chemo session. I open my mouth to apologize for forcing her to spend time with our mom but before I could even start our mom walks out and interrupts us.

"How was the party? Did you have fun tonight?” she asks. Sometimes I don't get how she knows when to cut into our arguments at just the right time, and always before I say anything honest.

“Well you know what mom, it was alright, people were drinking and smoking and I just sat in the corner and stared.” At least whatever psychic bond that may or may not exist extends to her knowing when I'm joking, and my mom just smiles and pats my arm. Just like Dinah does. My sister on the other hand, rolls her eyes, adjusts her robe, and heads back into the house without saying goodbye.

“I don't know how you do that.” I admit.

"Do what?” and my mom just looks at me for a while as I consider how to say it.

"Dissolve things…make things easier to live with.” and I try very hard to focus on the porch light as I hastily wipe away a tear that slipped out. My mom draws me into a hug while we're still in my sister's driveway and I feel like a kid again, like when I'd come home from school and say they were mean to me today, can I have a hug? And she'd give me one, just like she does now. Except this time I'm taller and mom's smaller than she used to be.

“Oh honey, I've had a lot of time to practice,” she whispers into my ear, “ Is this just about my cancer, or is something else bothering you too?” She's pulled back and staring at me closer now and maybe the interns were right. I want to say where I've really been, what I've really been doing, and maybe somehow she would already know. How if I stopped right now, yeah I've lost a lot of money but I've still got my house and car, and I could rebuild my savings and retirement. That I still have her too, for now at least. But I pull her into a side hug and walk us to my car instead.

“I love you, let's get home so we can rest before tomorrow.”